Instead of using generic emails even with personalized salutations, you can achieve as much as a 360-percent higher-conversion rate by following new strategies to fill your sales pipeline.

But to do so, you need three elements:

Stellar content marketing

Effective salespeople

Cutting-edge management software

Content marketing can help you in two ways – by developing a large volume of sales leads and by distributing a great branding message to ease the selling process by your salespeople.

Then, yes, it’s up to your salespeople.

They must know the secrets for sales success: The five value perceptions that motivate customers to buy and the three-step process to overcome sales objections – along with the The 7 Steps to Higher Sales.

And not only must they be trained well. They must be persistent in repeat sales calls. A mere 2 percent of sales result from the first meeting with prospects.

(Scroll down to the Coach’s Corner for menu of articles with sales tips.)

The right software will keep your salespeople organized.

So, your sales pipeline will flourish if you effectively use all three elements.

For a comprehensive explanation, see the following infographic, “3 Ways to Move a Customer Through Your Pipeline,” courtesy of Ghergich & Co. (ghergich.com).

Big Ticket Sales – Prevent Buyer’s Remorse with 4 Precautions — In big-ticket sales — from consulting services to information technology — customer emotions run high. Buyer’s remorse will cost you a big sale. To prevent buyer’s remorse, you need to be a calming influence in order for the customer to understand you’re providing value.

What Successful Marketers Know About Lead Generation — Professional marketers are more successful when they use integrated marketing automation to evaluate their performance and to become more competitive in the marketplace. This means they’re more sophisticated than their competitors in determining their returns on investments, according to a study.

“Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”

–Lewis Grizzard

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

In content marketing, painting the right picture with words – simplicity as in a garden of roses – yields better results. Complex, technical pieces don’t have to be monotonous.

You want your audience to relate to your writing, right? Simplicity is important if you want to reach financial decision-makers not just geeks — especially in small to medium enterprises. More on that later.

If you want a rosy response from blogging technical topics — simplify your content — to make it more popular. Take your readers for a walk in your garden of ideas.

To get the desired rosy response, here are six tips:

1. Easy-to-read format

Studies have shown the average time readers spend on a Web site in the U.S. is about three minutes.

You can increase the average time-spent-reading by users by making your blog easy to read while decreasing your page download time.

So use a format that allows readers to quickly scan your topic to see if they want to invest time in digesting your content.

Less is more, so use white space to avoid the appearance of clutter.

Take your readers for a walk in your garden of ideas.

2. Images

Readers are often intrigued if they see photos of people. But graphs and charts to illustrate points are appealing, too.

Another technique to consider is the use of images as metaphors. Metaphors will make your topic memorable.

3. Verbiage

It’s too easy to fall into the trap of using mundane, or boring, language. Look for ways to brighten your copy to appeal to the readers’ senses.

If you want readers to buy your ideas, remember all buying decisions are based on emotion. Avoid adverbs and use action words that evoke emotion.

An IT geek often has to get permission to spend money. If you want a tech person to feel comfortable in submitting your ideas to the boss, your points must be easy-to-understand.

Hence, the need for simplicity. So make your ideas universally attractive.

4. Analogies and examples

Like the image of roses, as a metaphor in this post, your copy will be more successful if it’s something with which most businesspeople relate.

Write with colorful examples. Use case studies – readers love succinct authoritative data and to read why other people are successful.

5. Links to additional information

If you do it right, readers will want more information. You can provide it by linking to your other articles.

There are three ways to do it:

— Contextual links within sentences

— Insert headlines in your paragraphs that link to your other pages

— Insert headlines as resource links at the end of your article

The search-engine crawlers will be impressed with your blog, which will improve your site’s ranking. Factors include the using the right keywords for searchers, the time-spent-reading and the number of pages per visitor, as well as the volume of hits and use of bandwidth.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related topics:

Secrets for Attracting, Keeping Readers on Your Blog — Content marketing is a valuable tool, but only if you observe best practices in substance and style – writing the most intriguing headlines and most relevant copy. Attracting readers and keeping them on your blog or site means you must capitalize on your strengths and write for the benefit your Internet readers.

SEO and Other Strategic Tips for a No.1 Rated Blog — To own your blogging niche, you must understand the evolving process — important basics in search engine optimization and other strategies. If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you know success doesn’t keep come automatically. Blogging is arduous work. You must have a strategic blogging goal.

13 Tips to Develop the Best Content for a Top-Rated Blog — Content marketing has become an art form via blogs. Google the term, blog, and you’ll see millions of search results. At last count there were 190 million blogs. So you face serious competition for readers’ eyes. That’s especially true if you want to be known as a go-to informational site in your niche.

Good Blogs Have Nothing to Fear from Google’s Updates — Alarms bells are sounding all over the Internet after Google’s seemingly incessant algorithm updates. The search engine’s changes can be unnerving for bloggers, but there’s no reason to panic. Use patience and tenacity to succeed.

“Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.”

-George Singleton

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.